Film short abstract:

Transforming Voices: Selection is a selection of short films examining women vulnerability. The films combine experimental imagery, music, sounds and the testimonies of Mexican and Spanish women who shared their experiences of and/or views on gendered vulnerability.

Film long abstract:

Transforming Voices (www.transformingvoices.com) is a research platform using experimental collaborative filmmaking to examine narratives of women organisational vulnerability. Developed during the Covid 19 pandemic by an interdisciplinary team of ethnographers, social scientists and audio-visual artists, Transforming Voices utilises an original filmmaking methodology based on decentred authorship, non-physical (digital) collaboration, and the voice (spoken utterance) as the primary locus of meaning and affect.

The project’s methodology involves four stages. Firstly, social scientists conduct and record conversations, interviews, and focus groups with participants. Secondly, excerpts from the recordings are carefully selected and edited into short (2-5min) narrations. Thirdly, musicians and sound designers from around the world compose music and design effects that are used to transform the narrations into soundscapes. Finally, international filmmakers add visuals to the soundscapes to turn them into short films (3-5min).

The project’s methodology based on digital co-creation eschews individual film authorship in favour of modes of participation, collaboration and accessibility unavailable in more conventional filmmaking processes. Similarly, the project’s focus on the disembodied voice challenges the privileging of observation that underpins common filmmaking and social research techniques such as the long take, observational documentary and thick description, among others.